The advantages of fame are many and obvious – the girls, the incessant, piping hot whistle of the self-e-steem-kettle, the restaurant table in the corner at the back – but if you’re pursuing fame as an end itself I urge you not to bother. Look within, find God, or Buddha, a flickering Yogic light, because – and yes, it is easy for me to say – fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you’re an artist and you simply must sing or dance or weave baskets then carry on, but make sure the focus is the singing or the dancing or the baskets. Otherwise when you get here you’re in for a terrible shock; your problems that you were trying to bludgeon with a shimmering neon rod will be here waiting stronger than ever.
The bright side is, if you have your art, that will never leave you. If you respect it. And you might get to be friends with some of your childhood heroes. Like Jonathan Ross or, if you’re really lucky, Morrissey.
You must have noticed that throughout this book, glinting at you through the sludge, the scandal and muck, are lyrics and lines from the mouth and mind of Steven Patrick Morrissey. This is because those words served for me as sermons, buoying me through murky adolescence and anguished early adulthood. For me as for many, Morrissey was a prophet who showed me there was a light at the end of the tunnel of self-banishment, and, as he said himself, that light “never goes out”.
I interviewed him first on one of my flung-together TV dog’s dinners and meeting him was like meeting, ahem, the Queen. I had ground-floor vertigo when I met him in his dressing-room at the BBC in Shepherd’s Bush. Waiting at the door like I was about to freefall from the aeroplane of fandom into the sky-blue plunge of friendship with an icon.
Never meet your heroes, they say; well they’re wrong, do. They’re usually great. Maybe I just selected good heroes. Tony Cottee, Paolo Di Canio, Jonathan, David Baddiel and Morrissey have all been completely fulfilling. But the first four on that list I always secretly knew were human, with Morrissey one has doubts.
“What’s he like?” people ask me. Well, he’s EXACTLY LIKE HIS SONGS! EXACTLY. Like the living embodiment of every rhyming quip, pun, poem and wail. He says things that transport you magically back to “The Queen Is Dead” or “Vauxhall and I”, in mid conversation.
Like his work he is tender, humorous, adolescent, unspoiled, melodramatic, English, insightful, self-absorbed and utterly fucking brilliant.
After the interview in which I sycophantically grilled him, we exchanged email addresses and began a correspondence. Morrissey, obviously, does not have a phone. The first time he came to see me do stand-up was in LA in a titchy fleapit theatre on Hollywood Boulevard called the Paul Gleason, which I thought must be named after a dead legend. It turns out it’s named after Paul Gleason, the bloke who owns it. “I’d like to pay a tribute to Paul Gleason,” thought Paul Gleason, “something to honour him, and all he stands for. What would be a fitting tribute to him? I’ll just go and ask me what I think.” It seats about fifty people and the toilet is conveniently placed between the front row and the stage, which is very helpful during performance and smells great. When performing to a room of fifty, one of whom is Morrissey, it is difficult to maintain focus. It’s like doing a gig on the tip of Michael Jackson’s shoe.
Somehow I held it together that night and did a good show, ignoring his iconic silhouette, his famous quiff looming above the other forty-nine spectators like Mickey Mouse’s ears or the Taj Mahal. Afterwards he came to see me backstage. The backstage area of the O2 arena is crap, so imagine if you can the backstage area of the Paul Gleason. If you were dragged there to be whacked by mobsters you’d turn your nose up at it. “Can’t you just kill me in the car park?” you’d ask.
Set list for my first US gig, which Moz attended. A lot of favourites – seagulling, death/life (finally explained) and, of course, Hitler.
Desperate for approval and notes I stared at the concrete floor with me mum, Sharon, Nicola, Nik, Jack and Gareth when Her Majesty swept in with her ladies-in-waiting. I tried to stand up but was already standing so just stretched like a deer feeding off frosty leaves just beyond reach. Even though it was my gig and I ought to have been in charge of hospitality, it was Moz who gestured to the two plastic garden chairs with a regal sweep of his arm. The two of us sat opposite each other, like Letterman shot on location in The Book of Eli.
“Introduce yourself,” he instructed me, nodding to his entourage, who like mine remained well back on the periphery watching the pair of us like anxious spaniel breeders.
“How are you?” I politely enquired. This talk was too small for Morrissey.
“Well done,” he said with sincerity. Then, with genuine wonder, “How do you do it?”
“What? That?” I spluttered. “It was nothing.” I had to stop myself telling him that he was the inspiration behind every joke. He wouldn’t have needed informing of the influence of his performance, I swish the mic cable during every significant laugh in an act of self-aggrandisement that even Paul Gleason would consider ostentatious. We talked for a while about a documentary about him we planned to make together. Morrissey at the time was a resident in a Los Angeles hotel. “It’s difficult to schedule, Morrissey,” I said, “with you having nowhere to live.”
“Nor nothing to live for,” he immediately responded. “Wow!!! Morrissey!! It’s Morrissey!!”
Our email exchanges follow a similar pattern – regard:
From: Morrissey
Sent: 09 July 2008 15:58:34
To: Russell
Subject: Empty TV
* * *
Rustle:
I’m delighted for you with your MTV hosting thing; as you say, it will be good for America - so please don’t hold back - educate them, drag them forwards. Naturally, I’ve never been mentioned at the MTV Awards, or Awarded, or whatever it is they do, so I don’t know what It’s like, but assume it’s awful. This is where you change things. You Can, you will, you must. Off you go, Fatso.
Everly,
Misery.
What a thing to discover that in your inbox after growing up so entirely enamoured of him. And what helpful advice – after preventing me from killing myself as a teen he was actively encouraging me as an adult. Luckily I didn’t overdo the “gushing” in my response …
From: Russell
Sent: 10 July 2008 02:57:35
To: Morrissey Subject: MmmmMMMmmmmTV
* * *
eMissary,
I shall dedicate the evening to you and your cause/causes - I’ll harangue anyone flogging hot dogs and stinking up the world with fleshy aroma, I’ll make it clear that I regard with disdain all inhabitants of the legal establishment but my most coruscating venom I’ll reserve for that unforgivable wretch; a soul so rancid I scarce dare write her name, I refer of course to that foul blemish on the face of humanity “Cancer’s poster girl” *********** mbe.
Then I’ll get that baby off the cover of “years of refusal” and arrange for him to ascend into a tunnel of light while “Yes I am blind” is played by Jean Michel Jarre.
You were wonderful at Hyde Park with many nominating it as their favourite live (“as oppose to dead”) performance of yours. I enjoyed What she said and, yes, all of the new stuff. Naturally I expect you to have devised a new set by the next time I see you, perhaps incorporating those Israeli fellas who were at the after gig garden party - they seemed game.
Why don’t you come to one of the records for my TV shows? There’s one Monday, come. Also I know an acupuncturist who would dearly love to prick you, this is not a euphemism - let me know if you’re interested. Finally, be sure to watch me on Richard and Judy this Friday.
Scandalous love
razzle.
It was all I could do not to send him one of my earlobes. Morrissey however remained untroubled by the flattery and amusing.
From: Morrissey
Sent: 10 July 2008 11:40:03
To: Russell
Subject: RE: MmmmMMMmmmmTV
* * *
Rustle:
&nbs
p; Oh, the pain, the pain. Richard Mad said of me (last year): “he is
Insufferable and poofed-up” - so he’s bound to say the same about
You. I replied: “this is a bit much coming from a man who married
His own mother,” and the quote was printed in the Daily Mirror!
of course I’ll come on your telly show. Only if I can dress up.
I sat by the pool yesterday (I’m in Switzerland) listening to a CD of
Alan Carr (your ONLY competition in the hee-haw stakes), and I had
3 vodkas and belly-laughed for about an hour. Am I still ill?
A very sexy French woman came up to me and said “how much are
YOU?” and .... Well, I’ll complete this story on your telly show.
Lashings of luv
Monotony.
That’s how people throw up.
That’s my favourite one. I think it’s safe to include the Madeley line as he himself has already said it publicly. Plus he seems still to revel in rabble-rousing. Consider this one after I’d given him a pair of underpants as a birthday gift.
From: Morrissey
Sent: 26 May 2008 00:02:57
To: Russell
Subject: Rustle
* * *
Thank you for your y-fronts. It was only a matter of time.
Thanks to Sharon Stone for the candle - tell her to ask for Jeff Turner when she’s next back at the Peacock gym.
I hope you can drum up at least one new joke for tonite’s show - do your best, anyway.
Bucket’s full of luv to you
MOZZERREY.
The Sharon Stone to whom he refers is of course my beloved Sharon, whom once at dinner in LA he sat listening to spellbound as she forensically discussed her routine attendance of a south London boxing club, a topic I’d brilliantly raised knowing it would pique Moz’s interest. He sat rapt as she fine-tooth-combed her way through the details. “You know in Peckham Rye, up Asylum Road?” Morrissey nodded. “Well, Peacock’s Gym is up Hangman’s Lane … you heard of it?” Morrissey smiled with acknowledgement. “If you go a bit past the bus depot” … he continued to smile ... “there’s a lovely pie and mash shop – do you know it?” Morrissey sighed, “Well, I don’t know about a pie and mash shop; I lead a very busy life.” He just changed the rules of the conversation in an instant. Before detail had been all, but now, spying a wry giggle, the game changed. MORRISSEY!!!!
My response …
From: Russell
Sent: 26 May 2008 12:15:44
To: Morrissey
Subject: Moz def
* * *
The show was a triumph. The new joke knocked em bandy.
I think I may’ve made a mistake with the y-fronts, my mojo might’ve been contained in there; I feel their absence like an amputated limb. I’m like a eunuch who’s still got his unmentionables but doesn’t know where to put em - they’re ornamental now. But what fine trinkets.
Your new record is fantastic; it feels like the summit of a trilogy or the centre of a triptych, whichever suits, regardless it is a marvellous evolution of its two predecessors.
Oh well... what’ll I give you next year? The mind boggles.xxx
Branded for life
This next – regarding our plans for the documentary – is a beautiful example of his sense of humour and puts the kibosh once and for all upon those who would dub him a misery guts.
From: Morrissey
Sent: 03 November 2007 21:42:07
To: Russell
Subject: Branded for life
* * *
Russell dingle:
my idea (which is piles better than yours) was Russell Dingle & The Morrissey Band adrift on a small boat off the coast of Central America with just one cameraperson and a week’s supply of Mini-wheats. there would be many nail-biting questions for telly-viewers throughout Nuneaton:
who will throw russell overboard first?
what will russell wear?
who IS russell, anyway?
why do we in Nuneaton deny our love for Morrissey?
and so on.
Sensationally, M.
ps / I am now in South Carolina. You’d have a bit of trouble here, I fancy.
I love that one. He called me “Russell Dingle” as he is a fan of the rural teatime British soap Emmerdale. I once asked him why this was, and he said, “Because it’s brief.”
If Morrissey asks you a favour it’s like Suge Knight offering you a cigar – you’re concerned about the possible outcome but what choice do you have?
Morrissey asked me for a favour. He wanted me to interview him as an “extra” on his album at the time, Years of Refusal. I said yes. Then he asked if we could use the Sunset View house as a location, and again I said yes. Don’t let your house be used as a film location under any circumstances except perhaps if your childhood hero is behind the request. Film crews will treat your house as a set, move stuff, smoke and fart and do as they see fit. You only have to observe the way location crews behave on city streets, blocking the roads to film, holding up traffic, not letting people carry on with their daily lives – shushing them. When I see one I make a point of barging past the shot. “I live in this fucking city!” I shout, or think (depending on the size of the crew). “Your pretend film is not as important as my real life!”
Imagine that in your house. Only Morrissey could make it worthwhile. He entered after his horde; only the make-up lady was welcome other than himself on account of arriving with some massive boobs. Morrissey perused the house. I perused his make-up lady’s boobs; that is the miracle of big boobs, they remain interesting above all else. I have stared over the shoulder of enlightenment to get a butcher’s at a cleavage. I would eschew a drink from the Holy Grail to see some knockers wobble. Morrissey spied the portrait of him above the fireplace. “Is that weird?” I asked, but he didn’t seem to think so, he is acclimatised to devotion. We strolled upstairs and there was a girl in my bed. Morrissey was polite, she was probably a bit too young to be impressed (by Morrissey I mean, I’d already put on a dazzling display of sex-robatics). That is one of the problems of the widening gulf between me and my quarry, the reference disparity. I once took a gorgeous floosie for a wander round Abbey Road where Oasis were recording a tribute to Sgt. Pepper. I was with David Arnold, the great composer and oddball who was arranging my soon-to-be ridiculed cover of “When I’m Sixty-Four” (which me and David maintain is brilliant in spite of Noel’s relentless abuse). David gave me the direction that I ought sing it as if I were a contemporary Paul McCartney looking out of his window, all frail. I thought it was haunting. FUCK NOEL!!! David by way of politeness began to tell the young lady of Abbey Road’s history. “This is where the Beatles used to record, you know the Beatles of course?” She looked at him like a cat watching a tennis match. “I’ve heard of them,” she said vaguely. The way I’ve heard of GG Allin or Plushies, esoteric oddities at the outskirts of my interest. She made up for it though later when knowledge of pop music plummeted down the charts and orgasm rocketed in translucent shards to the top of the hit parade.
I interviewed Morrissey in the only non-leather chairs in the house in front of the fireplace, having removed the portrait of him in case it looked too staged. For a man who’d requested the interview Morrissey was incredibly uncooperative. Interviewing him is like a blustery old colonel trying to cajole his pretty young wife into fellatio. He may not have seemed incredibly grateful at the time (grateful is hardly a word one associates with Morrissey), but the next day he sent me a beautiful basket of fruit. The grapes formed a glorious centrepiece in an orgy I was involved with that day, inspiring the unforgettable line “I can’t believe I’ve had a Morrissey grape in my ass!” I informed him of this titbit via email. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” he responded.
Friendship with Morrissey, though, hasn’t been all fan worship and arse fruit. There have been challenging times due to his fastidiousness and ability to control me. Obviously this ch
apter had to be sent to Moz for approval as I would never dare offend him. What follows is his emailed response to our mutual friend Jen Ivory.
From: Morrissey
Sent: 03 June 2010 13:58
To: Jen
Subject: Rustle -vs- Lord M, Supreme Court Division
* * *
jivory:
I don’t like my emails being reprinted. I’d feel as if I’d been interfered with by the Romford Kiddie-fiddler.
I don’t like being referred to as “The Queen”, especially by a man who wears make-up, has ringlettjes and wears eye-gouging rings on each of his 12 fingers. I don’t mind “Monarchy”.
I don’t like being referred to as “Her Majesty”; I’d accept His Misery.
I didn’t refer to Rustle’s assistant as “Sharon Stone” - I called her “Sharon Stoned”, which is much funnier. Trust Rustle to pear-down my sharpness in order to make his own Bargain Hunt jokes sparkle.
The Peacock Gym is in East London, NOT South London.
Sharon Stoned was referring to Peckham and Asylum Road as directions to her OWN house, NOT to the Peacock gym. Rustle is OBVIOUSLY back on the Bulmer’s, or else his memory is a shaky as his legs.
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